


Easy, Burnham

by Isntthatrightzach



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: And confusing feelings, F/M, Nobody likes green smoothies Ash come on, just chatting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 14:29:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12608684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isntthatrightzach/pseuds/Isntthatrightzach
Summary: Ash Tyler finds it easy to talk. Michael doesn't, but she wants to.A little chat, sometime before 1x07.





	Easy, Burnham

He’s drinking a green smoothie again, through a straw, and her mind instantly pipes up - _why does everyone on this ship seem to think this is an acceptable replacement for a meal? ___

__She might not have said it out loud, but she feels like he can hear her somehow when his eyes flit up, noticing her, and he breaks into an immediate, impulsive smile._ _

__He has a nice smile. It comes to him easily._ _

__“Burnham,” he greets warmly, without even a slither of the sharpness she’s grown so accustomed to hearing accompanying the sound of her own name. His eyes jump to the empty seat in front of him, a wordless invitation._ _

__He’s uncharacteristically alone. After the first few days, Lieutenant Tyler seemed to have a far easier time sliding into the crew than she did. He’s always with someone, talking comfortably, laughing over something._ _

__It makes sense. She can’t blame them for being more interested in talking to the survivor than the mutineer. Especially when he has such a nice smile. He always notices her, though._ _

__Of course, Michael is letting this train of thought spool out in real time, which she realises when she sees his smile widen into something broader, teasing._ _

__“Something on your mind?” He asks._ _

__She hesitates._ _

__“Do you always drink that?” She asks in reply, instead of answering his question, and gestures to the smoothie. He glances down at it, and back to her._ _

__“You don’t approve?” He replies, then takes a little rebellious sip, which completely destroys any coherent line of logic she had ready to answer that question. He’s grinning at her, ever so slightly mischievously, and she feels that sudden fluttering warmth rise up in her stomach that keeps springing up, unbidden, when he looks at her like that._ _

__Instead, she just takes the seat across from him. It seems safer._ _

__He finishes the whole thing, then and there, and she can’t help but crack a smile as quirks an eyebrow at her, defiant._ _

__“I just think there are better forms of nutrition for someone with such active duties,” she starts, remembering the first time she’d made this point to Tilly. Just before she’d met him for the first time, in fact._ _

__“What if I just like them?” He asks, leaning in just a little, a stray lock of dark hair falling out of place that Michael does her best to ignore._ _

__She raises a brow._ _

__“Nobody likes them,” she replies, simply._ _

__He laughs. A big laugh, full of warmth._ _

__“Ok, you’ve got me there, Burnham,” he says._ _

__He’s smiling at her again, and that tension in her stomach is twisting as his gaze seems to linger on her features. Her lips. He idly turns the straw between his fingers._ _

__“Ok, criticism of my nutrition duly noted,” he says, leaning back in his chair a little. “In my defence, it’s been a long day, and I’m not that imaginative.”_ _

__He’s smiling at her, as if he’s waiting for her to argue with him, and she feels herself seized with a sudden panic, because now that she’s here, sat with him, she doesn’t know what to say._ _

__She could start listing off better alternatives to that awful green goop, and there are many, but that suddenly seems incredibly foolish, and she doesn’t want to unnerve him, as she had Tilly._ _

__How was it the words seemed to come to him so effortlessly, but she found herself frozen by the prospect of simply talking to someone asking nothing of her but company?_ _

__It should be simple enough – idle chat – this is what people did, isn’t it?_ _

__He must’ve sensed her panic, because he gets that odd, gentle look on his face she’s seen a few times now. This is the first time she manages to find the right word to describe it. _Fond.__ _

__“Easy, Burnham,” he says, and leans forward, carrying on as if nothing had happened, and changing the topic, “so, tell me Science Specialist, what did we discover today?”_ _

__–_ _

__“There you are,” Tilly smiles, brushing her hair – a lengthy, nightly ritual Michael has become accustomed to. “I was wondering where you’d gotten to.”_ _

__Michael doesn’t think anything of it when she tells Tilly she’d just been caught up talking to Tyler. Well, listening to Tyler, really. Tilly gives her _that_ look, like she knows something Michael doesn’t, and starts to pin locks of red hair up. _ _

__“Well that explains it,” she says lightly, “finally caught him alone, huh?”_ _

__Michael sits across from her, wondering how to ask Tilly something as simple as ‘how do I talk to him?’_ _

__“He seems to have made a lot of friends,” Michael says instead, trying to shift the subject onto slightly steadier ground._ _

__Tilly is half paying attention._ _

__“I think he just doesn’t like being alone,” Tilly replies simply, unthinkingly incisive, as ever._ _

**Author's Note:**

> I don't what this is, but I couldn't get it out of my head. I wonder how many little conversations they had before Michael realised what was happening?


End file.
